BaL 27.09.14 - Holst: The Planets

[visualnickmos]

There's another Boult available for download, this time with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planets-Op-M...s+boult+vienna

Hello Pabmusic

I picked up this CD some while ago in a 'bin-end' in MDC in The Strand. I still don't know quite what to make of it! What do you think of it?

[Pabmusic]

...What do you think of it?

Well, it wouldn't be my choice for BAL, but… Boult is as good as ever at moulding forces that clearly were 'at sea'. And that's why it's an important recording. Only 10-15 years earlier, many (most?) of the players would have been 'Germans' of the Third Reich, with absolutely no knowledge of this piece. Surely it must have crossed Boult's mind that they were as 'raw' as the Queen's Hall Orchestra had been when they prepared and performed (most of) the piece in 1918.

[PJPJ]

Saturn and Jupiter were recorded again acoustically in 1925 before the the whole work was re-recorded electrically in 1926.

http://www.pristineclassical.com/pasc131.html

and both recordings here, as well as the rest of Holst's results in the studio (I don't have this release):

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=4593

Indeed there are two versions. In fact it's more complicated still, as this blog suggests (and which has a link to an extra 'take', and to four movements recorded by Ernest Macmillan and the Toronto SO in 1942):

http://music.damians78s.co.uk//?s=planets

[amateur51]

Sad, but true!

To be fair, I remember a lot of my CD purchases around that time because I was replacing vinyl. I'd given up on jazz and indie/alternative and was building a classical collection.

I've never suffered from believing I was cool, so it was Bolero, The Planets etc, all the way for me!

Great music, what's not to be cool about?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Boult 1966 recording received rave reviews on its release, praised for its brisk and menacing Mars. It became the standard with which subsequent recordings were compared. Then Boult's final version seemed to eclipse it in the critics eyes, not praising the much slow Mars as being stronger. Personally I found the later version stodgier throughout.

Of the recordings I've heard, it's Boult 66 and VPO Karajan for me.

[silvestrione]

But, with only a few exceptions, like Karajan (and he knew it from his Philharmonia years), by far the best part is in some way British/American (either the orchestra or the conductor).
Again, a British master piece not so well received outside the English speaking world.....

I just have the BPO Karajan, which is stunning.
However, the bookies have the chances of DON recommending it at 300 to 1!

[EdgeleyRob]

Boston Symphony Orchestra,Steinberg hasn't been mentioned much.
Absolutely stunning IMO,anyone else rate this version ?.

I also have BPO Karajan and LPO Boult (1978).

[richardfinegold]

Boston Symphony Orchestra,Steinberg hasn't been mentioned much.
Absolutely stunning IMO,anyone else rate this version ?.

I also have BPO Karajan and LPO Boult (1978).

I haven't heard that one (Steinberg) in the last 30 years, but I remember being very impressed by it.

[Rolmill]

However, my favourite Boult version is the 1973 Proms recording recently issued as a BBC Music Magazine CD. In a word, stunning.

Yes, I snagged this CD recently from a charity shop - originally got it for the other work on the CD (Paul Lewis's 2010 Proms performance of Beethoven's 1st piano concerto) but found the Holst performance much more interesting and exciting. I also like the Lloyd Jones performance on Naxos very much - excellent playing and an interesting coupling (The Mystic Trumpeter).

I used to have the Montreal SO/Dutoit on LP, very well played and recorded (didn't it win a Gramophone Award back in the 1980s?).

[makropulos]

I haven't heard that one (Steinberg) in the last 30 years, but I remember being very impressed by it.

I agree. My other favourites include Karajan/VPO (Decca), various Boult recordings, and Mackerras/RLPO on Virgin Classics (which is presumably deleted at the moment as it's not been mentioned).

[rauschwerk]

I used to have the Montreal SO/Dutoit on LP, very well played and recorded (didn't it win a Gramophone Award back in the 1980s?).

Yes, for Engineering and Production.

[verismissimo]

I've only ever had Bournemouth/George Hurst from 1974. Before your time Hornspieler?

Anyway there's another foreign conductor for Roehre.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Boston Symphony Orchestra,Steinberg hasn't been mentioned much.
Absolutely stunning IMO,anyone else rate this version ?.

Yep - me, too. (I have it on a DG "Walkman" cassette with Jochum's impressive Enigmas on side two.)

Great piece - I hadn't listened to it in years until a broadcast I tuned into in the car one afternoon earlier this year. It wasn't a particularly good performance, but I kept thinking "Wow! This is a fantastic piece of Music" all the way through.

[Roehre]

Boston Symphony Orchestra,Steinberg hasn't been mentioned much.
Absolutely stunning IMO,anyone else rate this version ?. ...

The one for me

One of the few recordings Steinberg made for DGG

[cloughie]

Alps - there is also a Brass Band Version by Black Dyke Mills Band conducted by James Watson on the Doyen label.